Our research focuses on two protected areas in Central Vietnam, with different levels of urbanization.
- Nha Trang Bay, situated along the south-central coast of Vietnam. In 2001, the first Marine Protected Area (MPA) was established here, covering approximately 160 km², to conserve and protect the marine environment. However, this archipelago is located close to the coast, resulting in a high urbanization rate.
- Nui Chua Park was declared a Nature Reserve by UNESCO in 2003. This site hosts 1066 km² of tropical forest, where 330 km² is a marine protected area. This area has been kept protected, and the urbanization is very limited to a few villages.
Over time, however, those areas have also become a popular tourist destination offering activities like diving, snorkeling, buoy mooring, and boat tours. Other pressures affected their health status, such as the increasing sedimentation arriving from the rivers, coral bleaching events (2019), Typhoon Damrey (2017), and Crown of Thorns outbreaks (2015-2019).
The area is home to a community of residents whose primary livelihood is small-scale fishing, typically using wooden boats. Since the mid-1990s, aquaculture has rapidly expanded in the bay and now provides a significant source of income for about one-third of local households. These activities—tourism, fishing, and aquaculture—may pose stressors to the underwater ecosystem. Understanding and addressing these impacts is a key objective of our research.
However, those pressures have not been present in the same way and number in the two areas, creating a difference of impacts, interesting for our study.
The two areas of study are shown in this map.
In purple: Nha Trang Bay.
In yellow: Nui Chua Park
The sites of interest are marked and annotated in order of preference.
Sites (1) Hon Dung, (2) Bai Bang , (3) Hon Mieu, (4) Hon Noc were surveyed.
6 sites were identified to sample, and 3 of them have been surveyed during the field trip in 2025. The surveyed sites were : (1) My Hoa, (2) Luoi Dang, (3)Hang Rai